US venture capital giant has once again backed online used car platform, Carma in a US$52 million (A$75m) Series A round. General Catalyst Partners led the round. MD Adam Valkin will join the Carma board. The US VC’s other local investments include Canva, BigCommerce and Buildkite Other international venture investors joining the round include Entrée Capital… Read more »
Food delivery tech company DoorDash has signed a pioneering agreement with the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU) that sets out safety and fairness standards for gig workers. Amid ongoing legal battles by global tech companies over the employment status of gig economy workers, the first-of-its-kind agreement between an Australian union and a delivery platform sets out… Read more »
It’s been a big week for former The Bachelor star and fitness advocate Sam Wood, who last week welcomed the birth of his third child and sold his fitness app ‘28 by Sam Wood’ in a $71 million (US$50m) deal with Melbourne tech company myDNA. Wood, 41, had his third daughter, Harper, with wife Snezana… Read more »
The federal government has awarded Queensland rocket company Gilmour Space Technologies $15 million to develop and launch a new sovereign surveillance satellite as part of a $7 billion ramping up of the nation’s space capabilities. Defence Minister Peter Dutton said the partnership with the Gold Coast tech company is part of the government’s Space Command,… Read more »
Victorian startup agency LaunchVic is offering grants of up to $2 million to support accelerator programs for local founders. Applications for the grant program are now open for experienced accelerator program providers to deliver either generalist or sector-specific programs over the next three years. LaunchVic CEO Dr Kate Cornick said the need for tailored support,… Read more »
Brisbane licensing marketplace Layer has raised $3,888,888 in Seed funding The round was led by Carthona Capital, with support from Aura Ventures, TEN13, Flying Fox, Black Sheep Capital, LUXEM, Tribe Ventures and several angels, including Go1 co-founders Chris Eigeland and Vu Tran. Layer’s marketplace connects games with leading rights holders including Bruce Lee, Narcos, CareBears,… Read more »
Australian law firm Lander & Rogers has announced the five startups in its fifth cohort of the LawTech Hub program. Three Australian legal tech startups are joined by one from London and another from New York, following a four-month hunt. Lander & Rogers Chief Executive Partner Genevieve Collins said that over the next six months,… Read more »
Kiwi VC Global From Day 1 (GD1) has launched New Zealand’s first dedicated web3/crypto-focused venture capital fund. The US$5 million ($NZ7.65m) fund, ‘GD1 Crypto Fund 1’, will be led in-house by cryptocurrency and web3 expert Nawaz Ahmed, who’s signed on as a General Partner. It will look to invest in the next generation of web3/crypto… Read more »
Premium shopping app Her Black Book has added cashback rewards to its platform ahead of Australian Fashion Week, which kicks off on Monday. Her Black Book is the brainchild of Sali Sasi and Julie Stevanj, the sisters behind Stylerunner. The pair announced their latest entrepreneurial venture last October, and in February, raised $1.6 million in Seed… Read more »
Every week on the Startup Daily TV show, we talk to more than two dozen founders, CEOs, investors and experts about what’s happening in tech. Now you can catch the best of the show with the weekly podcast, SUDS. The big local news this week was Mike Cannon-Brookes making a $650 million move on Australia’s biggest… Read more »
The finalists for FinTech Australia’s sixth annual business awards, known as The Finnies, have been announced. More than 290 entries were received for this year’s awards, across 20 categories, with the judges selecting a shortlist of 125 finalists. FinTech Australia CEO Andrew Porter said the calibre of entries continues to rise each year for the… Read more »
Tech focused co-working space, Tank Stream Labs, has opened its third Sydney site, a new hub for scale-up companies in the Tech Central precinct in Haymarket. The Scale-up hub has officially kicked off with 4,000 sqm of office space, with up to 7,000 sqm coming online by the end of the year. The hub is… Read more »
Canberra medical imaging startup Aurabox has raised $500,000 in Angel investment to transform how doctors and patients collaborate and share medical imaging. Founded in 2021, Aurabox is a software-as-a-service platform that enables the seamless sharing of medical imaging between doctors and patients. The medtech startup plans to use the funds to complete technical development and run… Read more »
Vai Photonics, a Canberra startup spun out of Australian National University last year to help vehicles navigate independently of GPS, has been acquired by Sydney tech company Advanced Navigation in a deal believed to be worth up to $40 million. Founded by physicists Lyle Roberts and James Spollard to commercialise their research, Vai Photonics has a… Read more »
The human brain is said to be the most complex biological structure ever to have existed. And while science doesn’t fully understand the brain yet, researchers in the expanding field of neuroscience have been making progress. Neuroscientists have made substantial inroads towards mapping the complex functions of the brain’s 85 billion or so neurons and… Read more »
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Tassie carbon accounting startup banks $5.3 million Seed round 
Smart hotels get even smarter: 72 Byte to launch in Australia with AI expert backing 
Eucalyptus head of growth Matt Rossi departs to launch his own marketing startup, Oodle 
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